Sorry Isn't Always an Apology
by muchtvs
Summary: Chrismukkah related oneshot concerning Ryan and Julie's evolving relationship post Marissa's death. Rated M for language and adult content & concepts.


Sorry Isn't Always an Apology

by muchtvs

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"_Words Are Falling From Your Lips Like Christmas"_  
- Leona Naess

That first Christmas without Marissa, Julie comes to visit him one last time, late into the night, after everyone with the exception of Sandy has gone home.

Still in the ICU after his fall from the Cohens' roof, Ryan is content to lie as still as he can on his right side, his eyes closed, a stiff, sanitized pillow tucked under his arm, listening to the returning rain tapping against his hospital room window. He feels a hand on his shoulder, a gentle squeeze, Sandy's voice close to his ear pulling him from the edge of sleep and telling him, "Julie's here. Are you up to seeing her?"

Ryan nods but waits to open his eyes until he can sense Julie is sitting next to him, until he can smell the same perfume that still reminds him of Marissa's presence because once in a while, Marissa must have borrowed some of Julie's fragrance from off her mother's dresser.

Sometimes, right after she had left the pool house, her perfume still lingered on his sheets.

Ryan sluggishly opens his eyes and greets Julie with a loopy smile.

He should sit up, that would be the polite thing to do, but he's so tired from some medicine they've given him to relieve aches and pains that have developed since he woke up from his 'not really a coma' and Ryan's so comfortable in the position he's in, that moving seems more work than it's worth.

"Hey," Julie says softly as she smiles back at him and does something she's never done before, which is to reach out and run her fingers over his hair, as if she's tracing his profile, forehead to jaw, fingernails feather light and precise on his skin.

It feels good.

It feels okay for some reason, no matter how bizarre it might be, this unfamiliar, physical closeness to Julie.

It makes him feel even more at peace than he was before she entered the room.

"Kirsten wasn't lying earlier when she told you that you scared us, Ryan. You scared all of us."

She emphasizes _all_.

"Sorry," Ryan says, feeling stupid and ridiculous that his accident made everyone worry and rush to the hospital on the one night no one should have to worry about anything.

"Shhhh," Julie tells him. "That's not what I mean."

The drugs are making his brain groggy and the room is a little smaller than it was before and the rain is tapping louder and Julie seems a little closer to his bed when she says to him, "I don't want you to die before me, Ryan. Sometimes it feels like you're the only connection I have left to her."

This time when Ryan tells Julie, "I'm sorry," he's not apologizing for his Chrismukkah plunge from the top of the Cohens' roof.

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The second Christmas after Marissa's death, Julie visits Berkeley with Ryan's brother in tow, proudly showing off her new son.

Charlie was born a month early, but he's healthy as a horse.

He doesn't look a thing like Frank or Trey or Ryan.

But he does look a bit like Kaitlin and Ryan tries not to imagine what the emotional ramifications of that will be when in a few years, his little brother might resemble strongly another one of Julie's daughters.

Holiday supplies dwindle and Ryan is the one who volunteers to run out and replenish the empty eggnog container.

On the way back home from the store, he pulls to the side of the road and gets out and leans against the hood of his jeep and watches all the Christmas lights on the houses dance and twinkle.

And shine their way through the dark.

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On the fifth Christmas after Marissa's death, Ryan and Julie sit and drink whiskey in a college bar in downtown Berkeley, ignoring both their cell phones as the devices chirp and ring and vibrate, demanding unwanted attention.

Frank died instantly of an unexpected heart attack in November and it's pretty damn obvious that both Julie and Ryan prefer to mourn his death with actions rather than words.

"To those of us still breathing," Julie says, or rather slurs, holding up her glass in a toast and clanking her shot against Ryan's. She throws back her hair and laughs and proclaims a decisive, "Fuck! It's been a hell of a couple of years, hasn't it?"

"Yep," Ryan answers, because that pretty much says it all.

Elvis starts singing something hypnotizing about a blue Christmas and Julie tugs a reluctant Ryan out onto the heavily worn, wooden dance floor.

"Your father hated to dance," she tells him, her head on his shoulder.

Ryan has his head on hers, his arms around her waist, and Julie's soft hair is brushing against his cheek.

"Marissa always wanted me to," he remembers, not even sure if Julie can hear him over the music.

Elvis finishes but the two of them keep swaying and eventually Julie says, "I miss them."

Ryan's not his father and Julie's not her daughter but life is sometimes more about just being _with_ someone at a certain moment rather than being alone, so when Julie lifts her head up and looks at him like she's feeling exactly the same emotions he refuses to feel, Ryan doesn't hesitate to lean in and kiss her.

They are both hurting in their own ways and he's drunk and she's drunker and this is all very clearly not right, this is all very wrong but it doesn't stop Julie from kissing him back.

It only lasts a minute, then no more clumsy swaying.

A little more whiskey.

Sandy shows up, a worried Bullit trailing right behind him, because while Julie may have loved Frank, she ultimately chose to marry the more reliable man.

"Are you alright, Sugar?" he asks her anxiously.

Julie nods and stands up and Bullit supports her as she stumbles her way out of the bar.

Ryan concentrates on following them in a straight line but Sandy stops him, his hand on Ryan's arm, and takes him into the men's room. He pulls a paper towel from the dispenser and gives it to Ryan and tells his son with a low, calm voice, "Wash your face."

Ryan is confused with the odd command, but he does it anyway because even though he's twenty-four, the man before him is still Sandy Cohen and when he tells Ryan to do something, Ryan might as well be sixteen again.

The water is cold from the tap but Ryan doesn't bother to wait for it to warm-up as he leans over the sink and haphazardly slaps water on his face. He glances at his reflection as he begins to wipe it dry.

He sees now why Sandy made him come into the bathroom.

There's proof of Julie on his lips, on his mouth, on his cheek.

The red of her lipstick mesmerizes Ryan, makes him think about what he just did, what just happened, until he feels Sandy gently turn him around.

His father takes the paper towel out of Ryan's hand and rubs away the evidence himself.

Ryan drops his head, ashamed, not able to look Sandy in the eyes.

Sandy tells him, "It's okay, Ryan. Let's just go home. Everyone's worried about you."

As they exit the restroom, Sandy throws the paper towel away, burying it deep in the garbage can.

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On the eighth Christmas after Marissa's death, Julie dresses Charlie in a dark blue suit that matches his big brother's and gives him strict orders to hold onto Sophie's hand tightly as the two of them march down the pristine runner to the white arch that Ryan and Taylor are getting married under.

When the ceremony is finished and the cocktails are flowing and the people mingling, Taylor flits around in a frenzied buzz of nerves and excitement.

Julie tells Ryan, "Your wife is beautiful."

Ryan nods, because Julie's absolutely right.

Taylor is beautiful.

He's never seen her look as lovely as she does now, this afternoon and earlier, when she smiled up at him and said, "Yes. Most certainly. Indeed and without hesitation, I will take Ryan Atwood as my husband. Forever."

Sophie and Charlie run by, Sophie's dress already covered in cake and punch, Charlie's suit jacket discarded to God knows where.

Julie attempts to control them, but the kids scoot by her in a flash and she sighs, "Oh what the hell, it's hopeless."

Ryan agrees.

Sophie is just like Seth, spoiled and manic and full of more energy than Ryan's sure he's ever possessed in the entire twenty-seven years he's been alive. The two kids are hyped up on sugar and an acute lack of supervision.

It is hopeless.

Julie watches Sophie and Charlie weave their way into the crowd and out of sight before she tells Ryan, "Sometimes, Charlie reminds me of them. He's got Marissa's frustrating independent streak and Frank's confident, almost arrogant, charm. I'm lucky. I see everyday a little of both of them in him."

Ryan thinks about his father and the girl that was once his girlfriend and he doesn't want to be sad today and he doesn't want Julie to think too hard or too much about the past, so he nudges her shoulder good-naturedly with a fist and he tells her, "Well then, for my brother's sake, you better lock up the liquor cabinet."

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On the tenth Christmas after Marissa's death, Ryan introduces Julie to Colin, a boy he discovered by accident sitting on a ledge of concrete one late afternoon as he walked to his car after a long day of work.

"Hello," Julie says warmly to Colin, politely shaking his hand. "Welcome to the family."

Colin awkwardly returns the gesture, seemingly completely out of his element and in _way_ over his head.

"History repeating itself," she tells Sandy. "You must be proud."

"I am," Sandy answers. "And Kirsten is worried things won't work out and Taylor is a little disappointed that she didn't think of bringing home a homeless child herself. Ryan beat her to the punch."

Julie laughs and points to Charlie and Sophie, who have trapped Colin on the couch and are chatting away at him while they simultaneously thrust a PlayStation remote at their new, instant best friend. "I have a feeling things will be okay."

Sandy agrees and grins and tells Julie, "Somehow things always end up alright, they work themselves out, even though it seems impossible sometimes that they will."

"Taylor told me once that the great thing about life is that it's unpredictable," Ryan adds to the conversation, coming up behind them, joining them side-by-side. "Until Taylor came along, that was the one thing about my life I hated the most."

Julie nods at his words.

She knows exactly he means.

"Unpredictable," she says. "It brings the good and the bad."

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At some point, at some Christmas, Marissa has been dead more years than she was ever alive.

Julie has an ornament of dry, glued beans and fading cardboard that Marissa made her almost two decades ago, when she was in the second grade.

Julie wraps it in tissue paper every year and packs it carefully in a special box because with age, more beans have fallen off then are staying on and it's important to her, that she has something of Marissa's intact to hang on the tree.

She shows the ornament to Colin one Christmas.

He stands beside her, silent, unsure what to do for a second before he scurries off to find his father, because Aunt Julie has started crying and once in a while, when this happens, it's always his dad that knows how to handle the situation.

Ryan walks quickly across the room, putting his arms around her, pulling her into a hug.

Julie's grown to understand over time why her daughter loved him so much.

Ryan has always been dependable and solid and more important than anything else, he's remained her one true connection to Marissa, and Julie can't imagine what the rest of her life would have been like, if Ryan would have died that first Christmas after Marissa's death.

If she would have lost all his memories about her child.

"I'm sorry," Ryan says over and over to her. "I'm sorry."

Julie keeps her head on his shoulder, her hair brushing against his cheek and even though she's asked the same thing of him many, many times before, she whispers into Ryan's ear, "Tell me about her. Anything. Just tell me about Marissa."

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Thank you for reading.


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